Qualcomm names BlackBerry veteran Sunil Lalvani as India head

Sunil Lalvani, who quit BlackBerry as India head in June this year, is now joining global chipmaker Qualcomm Incorporated. Qualcomm has appointed Lalvani as vice president and president of its India operations, as Avneesh Agrawal, senior vice president and president of Qualcomm India and South Asia exits the company. [caption id=“attachment_2365136” align=“alignleft” width=“380” class=" “]  Reuters[/caption] Lalvani’s appointment will be effective July 27 and he will report directly to Cristiano Amon, executive vice president and co-president, Qualcomm Technologies. He comes with more than 20 years of experience in sales, business development, strategic planning and business operations across the IT and telecom sectors. Prior to joining Qualcomm, Lalvani was heading BlackBerry’s India operations. He was instrumental in leading a strong engagement with carrier partners and ISV’s in India, to drive uptake of BlackBerry’s services portfolio in the India region. He was one of the few country heads at BlackBerry to come with very strong experience in the enterprise and business technology space rather than consumer-focused sales . Before being named BlackBerry India MD two years ago, ‎Lalvani headed Enterprise Sales for BlackBerry India since 2009, and has earlier worked with networking and enterprise players like Cisco, Nokia, SITA-Equant, and Global Telesystems in networking and telecom sales to enterprise customers in India.‎ He holds a bachelor’s degree in electronics engineering from Bombay University and a post graduate diploma in marketing management from Xavier’s Institute of Management, India. “I am pleased to welcome Sunil Lalvani as vice president and president of Qualcomm India. His broad industry experience and extensive leadership experience will enable us to strengthen existing strategic relationships, identify new opportunities for business growth and build new relationships in India,” Amon said.